

n--!0MPS07f 
4TS 

i i^ 
1 \ ; 
1 ! 1 

Mi 

f /J 
[J/ 


i':::JffAM!Jf 


r 




Class i 

Book 

CcB/iigfeN" 



COFYRfGHT DEPOSm 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 
Essays by Benjamin Fisher 



By the Author — Benjamin Fisher 

**Life Harmonies" Selected Poems (1914) 

Franklin Publishing Company 
Canton, Ohio 




J^rcunjyJ UiwnnhMnv 



•SJJ 



IAX1A»«XX. 



i^uionnnnuDiuiiiiiSiumuiiiiiuiiiiiinuuL 



^^i,ti,MaMUifti^4iiMMMBiMiWa i Mil l ,;i , iM 



T'RATfaS rHOM.VSOJf 

iSSATS 




"Br mj^jAMiJf TiSHeii 



FRAmUh PVBLlSHmC COMPAftY 
CANTOS. OHIO. 



{ m\mamm\imi^m\\mnmmmm»ism\mmmmmm^A 



i> 



ii 






Copyright, 1917, by 
Clarence A. Fisher 




.JUN 15 1317 

©CIA4G7458 



i 



®0 #ur Jear ^t«ter 

"^ tnnxt 

ial\ase life Ijae been to 
U8 a tonstsmt mspira- 
tton m all tl]at ts gooh 
an& beawttful anh true. 



PREFACE 

Sometime in the summer of 1910 the author 
of these essays chanced to obtain a volume of 
Francis Thompson's poems which had then 
been recently published in America. He be- 
came greatly interested in the work of Thomp- 
son and read and studied the poems with much 
enthusiasm. It happened that a few months 
later he found Thompson's essay on Shelley 
which had then but recently been put into book 
form and published in the United States, and 
this was read with especial delight. The Shel- 
ley essay prompted the writing of articles simi- 
lar in form on the life and works of Thompson, 
and in the fall of 1910 the two essays here pub- 
lished were written, the author at the time 
intending them for magazine publication. 
When they were completed, however, he be- 
came interested in the final preparation of his 
first book of poems, "Life Harmonies," and in 
the meantime the essays on Thompson were 
laid aside for future use. 

The works of Thompson although receiving 
recognition in England, the home of the poet, 
were known to but few in America at this time, 



and it was the author's hope that the articles 
might to some extent be the means of aweiken- 
ing a still greater interest and appreciation in 
the life and works of Thompson in this country; 
and it is believed that although Thompson is 
known now to many, yet the publication of the 
essays may be the means of bringing to others 
a realization of the beauty and greatness of 
Thompson's literary work, a^ well as consti- 
tuting in themselves a contribution to good 
literature. 

It is hoped that the book may fall into the 
hands of some who do not even know of 
Thompson and who have not read the mar- 
velous works of his genius, and especially for 
the benefit of these, it has been thought well 
to include a brief biographical sketch of 
Francis Thompson, and by way of added in- 
terest to the volume, a brief biography of the 

author. 

Clarence A. Fisher 
Canton, Ohio 

May, 1917 



PAGE 



CONTENTS 

Portrait of Francis Thompson 6 

Biographical Sketch of Francis Thompson - - - 17 

Portrait of Benjamin Fisher 22 

Biographical Sketch of Benjamin Fisher - - - - 25 

Francis Thompson, the Poet 33 

Francis Thompson's Poetry 53 

Works of Francis Thompson 63 



Biographical Sketch of Francis Thompson 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

of 
FRANCIS THOMPSON 

Francis Thompson was born at Preston in 
Lancashire, England, on the 16th day of De- 
cember, 1859. His father. Dr. Charles Thomp- 
son, was a physician who practised his profes- 
sion there and later at Ashton-under-Lyne. 

Very early in life he began to read much 
poetry; his early reading being mostly from 
Shakespeare, Scott and Coleridge. Later we 
find him a constant companion of Milton, 
Shelley and Shakespeare. In 1870 he was sent 
to Ushaw, a college near Durham. Here he 
enjoyed a fortunate freedom — the full oppor- 
tunity of reading the classics. Even during his 
college life his extreme sensitiveness, like that 
of Shelley's youth, made him happiest when 
alone. He studied for the priesthood but in 
his nineteenth year being found unfitted, he 
was advised to give up the idea much to the dis- 
appointment of his parents. 

Leaving Ushaw he went to Owens College 
at Manchester to qualify for his father's pro- 



18 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

fession, that of medicine, and although distin- 
guishing himself in Greek and classic work he 
had no success as a medical student. He says, 
of this period in his life: ''I hated my scientific 
and medical studies and learned them badly. 
Now (in after life) even that bad and reluctant 
knowledge has grown priceless to me." 

While at Manchester he would go to the 
libraries and to the galleries and museums, thus 
perhaps unconsciously fitting himself for his 
after work. Failing in his college examinations 
on more than one occasion and broken down 
with a nervous illness, like De Quincey he be- 
came addicted to the use of opium. He went 
to London carrying all his wealth with him, 
which consisted of two volumes, one in either 
pocket, "Aeschylus" and "Blake." However, 
there he found but little employment, had no 
money, suffered intensely all the pangs of 
hunger and dismay, and finally a complete 
mental and physical wreck, he wais for the time 
being rescued by a Mr. McMaster who took him 
into his employ in a boot-shop and secured 
clothes and lodging for him. Francis remained 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 19 

some months with Mr. McMaster and it was at 
this time that he sent several manuscripts to 
the magazines. One of these manuscripts was 
sent to Wilfrid Meynell, editor of "Merry Eng- 
land." 

He left what little employment he had and 
again became an outcsist on the streets of Lon- 
don, where in extreme despair he was found 
and befriended by a "girl of the streets" who 
gave him what aid she might until his later 
rescue by Wilfrid Meynell. 

In the Spring of 1888 Mr. Meynell found 
Thompson and befriended him; and through 
his influence and that of his wife, Alice Mey- 
nell, Francis was rescued from the streets of 
London and started on his great literary way 
which soon brought fame. His "Poems" pub- 
lished in 1893 ran through several editions re- 
ceiving praise from the reviewers and from 
Browning; then followed "Sister Songs" in 
1895, and "New Poems" in 1897. 

He had suffered greatly from bodily disease 
and melancholy, especially toward the last, and 
said upon the publication of "New Poems": 



20 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

'^Though my aims are unfulfilled, my place in- 
secure, many things warn me that with this 
volume, I am probably closing my brief poetic 
career." His biographer, Everard Meynell, 
tells us that Thompson never lost confidence in 
the satisfaction that his poetry was immortal; 
and this must have been his constant inspira^ 
tion during these troublesome times. 

Thompson's early experiences had broken 
down his health and ten days before his death 
he was sent to the Hospital of St. John and St. 
Elizabeth in London, and there at the age of 
forty-eight, on November 13, 1907, he passed 
away at dawn. 

Everard Meynell in the closing paragraphs of 
his admirable "Life of Francis Thompson" 
beautifully says : "Suffering alone, he escaped 
alone, and left none strictly bound on his ac- 
count. He left his friends to be busy not with 
his ashes but his works." Wilfrid Meynell 
wrote, "Devoted friends lament him no less 
for himself than for his singing. But let none 
be named the benefactor of him who gave to all 
more than any could give to him. He made all 
men his debtors, leaving to those who loved 
him the memory of his personality, and to Eng- 
lish poetry an imperishable name." 





]9J(i 



Biographical Sketch of the Author 
Benjamin Fisher 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

of 
THE AUTHOR 

Benjamin Franklin Fisher was born at Steu- 
benville, Ohio, on the 22nd day of December, 
1873. His father wsis Dr. Benjamin H. Fisher, 
a physician and surgeon who successfully prac- 
tised his profession there for many years. Dr. 
Fisher served as a surgeon in the Civil War, 
and continued in his profession until his death 
in November, 1906. He was married in early 
life to Elizabeth Rittenhouse who was born at 
Hopedale in Jefferson County, Ohio. Benja- 
min was one of four children, Bartley, Jennie, 
Benjamin and Clarence, the first of whom died 
at the age of six years, Jennie and Clarence still 
surviving. 

Benjamin's early education was obtained in 
the public schools of Steubenville, where he 
was graduated from the High School in 1892. 
He then went to Depauw University at Green- 
castle, Indiana, and pursued collegiate studies 
there for about two years. His first literary 



26 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

work wsis begun at this time in some brief 
articles and poems which appeared in the col- 
lege publications. Leaving college in 1895 he 
made an extended tour of Europe, travelling 
almost continuously for a year, giving much 
attention to the study of foreign languages and 
art. Returning home, he entered Oberlin Col- 
lege where he continued his studies, and later 
in 1899 returned to Depauw University. In all 
of his college work especial attention and study 
was given to literature and the fine arts. Some- 
what later he made another tour of Europe, 
contributing while abroad, and after his return, 
articles to various American magazines and 
newspapers. 

It was following the laist tour that he seriously 
began his poetical work. Within a few years' 
time, although engaged in business affairs, he 
wrote a considerable number of poems intend- 
ing them for later book publication. The 
poems of this period were, however, laid aside 
by reason of the requirements and time needed 
for business affairs, and only a few of them 
found their way into the published collection in 
1914. 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 27^ 

In 1903 he made a tour of Mexico into the 
far interior, and somewhat later the entire 
western section of the United States, contrib- 
uting while on these tours several articles to 
magazines and newspapers. His father and 
mother to whom he was greatly attached died 
in 1906. Shortly afterward he became presi- 
dent of a manufacturing company at Loudon- 
ville, Ohio, where he remained in business until 
his death. On July 19, 1915, he was married 
to Miss Cleo Redd of Loudonville. During the 
latter years of his life almost every moment 
possible was devoted to his poetical works, and 
in the early Spring of 1914 his first collection 
of poems was published under the title "Life 
Harmonies." 

He immediately set out to complete other 
works in which he had been interested for 
years, and just prior to his death had completed 
for publication a number of poems and prose 
works. In the midst of these labors he was 
stricken down by a sudden illness, and unex- 
pectedly passed away on Thursday, the 26th 
day of October, 1916. On a beautiful autumn 
day, Sunday, the 29th of October, he was 
buried in the little cemetery at Loudonville. 



28 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

The later years of his life were filled with little 
acts of kindness to those whom his charity could 
reach. His success in business, which came so 
late, was to have been only a means to the 
accomplishment of higher purposes in life — 



^'Incessant Spirit like a tireless goad, 

Compelling effort to unwonted trials. 
Why dost thou urge me onward o*er the road 

Of weary struggle through life's mazy wiles? 
With failures scorned and pleasures all subdued, 

I strive and strain to' reach those higher goals 
Where labor shall achieve some human good — 

Some influence sweet, or love in humble souls. 
So, shall thy force relentless keep her sway; 

E'en though I lose the common joys of life. 
My heart shall triumph in some golden day. 

With lives made better through my pain and strife. 
Thou gracious tyrant, wield thy chast'ning goad 
And drive me upward o'er thy skyey road." 

''ASPIRATION", a Sonnet. 



His constant companionship with Nature 
kept him always close to God. In death there 
was to him the triumph over life — 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 29 

"There pride is debased, humility exalted, 
suffering recompensed and sacrifice rewarded, 
in the vast harmony of that universal law 
*The Infinite Love of God.*" 



Francis Thompson, the Poet. 
An Essay 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 
THE POET 

Genius has been called ''divine inspiration" 
by some, simple "mind-concentration" by 
others; but the acknowledged fsiilure of all 
arbitrary definition demands that science de- 
clare it "the physical expression of a subcon- 
scious state of psychic receptivity." Thus we 
cannot have power without performance or 
"faith without works." 

In the artistic expression of Francis Thomp- 
son's conceptions we behold not the spark of 
genius, but the fire; not promise, but fulfill- 
ment; not a faculty for analyzation, but a 
power for wonder. He has had superiors in 
amount and variety of finished poetic produc- 
tion, but in those strange and beautiful heights 
and depths of pure poetic reach and achieve- 
ment, he has had scarcely an equal in a genera- 
tion. 

Comparisons among great men are usually 
our begging justification for a failure of true 
comprehension or an inability of clear exposi- 
tion. Thompson was like Shelley in figurative 



34 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

opulence; he was like Keats in his pure sensu- 
^ ousness ; he was likei^ CrashawNin his metaphysi- 
cal mysticism, and like Milton in his pure 
religious enthusiasm. He was similar, in cer- 
tain traits, to many others who left to the world 
(of which he, like Paul, held himself to be the 
least) the highest expression of some beauty of 
thought or feeling, which alone is true art. 

Yet, in native faculty and unique accomplish- 
ment, Thompson is distinctly individusJ — and 
individuality is the first mark of genius. He is 
comparable to another only as the violet is com- 
parable to the rose: the petals, the stamens, 
the leaves are there; but the colors, the odors, 
the forms, and their combination into the per- 
fect flower, are absolutely different and dis- 
similar. The flower of Genius is beyond meas- 
urement and comparison — almost "beyond 
mortal thought." With Shelley it flourished in 
Italian sunshine; with Milton it grew in the 
gloom of blindness; with Thompson it blos- 
somed in the murk of London byways. 

As we have intimated, scarcely any such pro- 
duction, equal in those subtle revelations of 



FRANCIS THOMPSON £5 

pure poetic spontaneity, has appe2ured in our 
language in a generation, as Francis Thomp- 
son's poems, not to forget that other master- 
work — the prose poem on Shelley. Profess- 
edly a Catholic, naturally a mystic, and studi- 
ously a classicist, with a sweet, unconscious 
inclination to the most innocent pantheism, — 
his was a nature strange and complicated, in- 
fluenced and tempered by many rare interests, 
and revealed in a poetry of almost universal 
though moderate aspirations. Like a child of 
the gods, he grasps for the richest splendor of 
the skies; like an ardent mystic, he delves in 
the depths of metaphysics ; like a darling of Na- 
ture, he lounges amid (lowers in the sunshine; 
like a religious ascetic, he seeks the depths of 
humiliation to reach a heaven of ecstacy. 

In a single poem of moderate length, "The 
Hound of Heaven," he touches all the chords 
of the spirit-harp, sounding infinite airs of feel- 
ing and thought harmonized into a symphony 
of rare and universal import. His was "the 
wayward souF* indeed, for the life of the home- 
less outcast was poisoned with such an utter 



36 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

misery that it found no final relief even in the 
impulsive outbursts of absolute bitterness, — a 
violent struggle between faith and despair, 
confused with every element of sensuous de- 
light and religious restriction. 

*'My freshness spent its wavering shower i* the dust; 
And now my heart is as a broken fount, 
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever 

From the dank thoughts that shiver 
Upon the sighful branches of my mind. 

Such is; what is to be? 
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? 
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; 
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds 
From the hid battlements of Eternity;'* 

from "The Hound of Heaven.'' 

A comprehension of such ^'rare Effusions" 
requires a consideration of the poet's environ- 
ment. In all the varied and wandering airs — 
those sky-lost songs of love and longing — the 
most insistent, the most piercing, the most 
overwhelming tone is that of sheer and utter 
wretchedness, felt not fancied, — the terrible 
hunger and want of the poet's life in London 
slums. If poetry of such "divine intention" 
could thrive in the dreary arches of the 
Thames, what a marvelous bloom of heavenly 



FRANCIS THOMPSON £7 

perfectness might have flourished in a summer 
clime! The merciless cruelty of his pain, 
touched by some subtle magic of music-fancy, 
sanctified the expression of his woe ''into some- 
thing rich and strange," — a solace to our own 
sorrow, a comfort to our own distress. 

Our constant wonder is that the mournful 
note of torment did not become a wail of de- 
spair, or sink into common scorn or blighting 
disbelief. Perhaps the drugs which eased his 
anguish in ''that nightmare-time which still 
doth haunt my dreams," lent to his mental 
sight a rarer view. Perhaps those strange, in- 
toxicating trances brought him clearer visions, 
giving to his "twenty withered years" — ^his 
"mangled youth," a new heaven and a new 
earth. Whatever the spell, it was an enchant- 
ing wine, a bewitching potion, whether its 
source were physical or mentsJ; for it made the 
sensitive wind-harp of his soul dumb to the 
storms of hatred and despair, but trembling in 
responsive modulation to every tender breath 
of gratitude and hope. 

Enough, then, of this "wailful sweetness"; 
of "the fierce kisses of misery that hiss against 



38 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

his tears"; of that deadly night when he whis- 
pered to his heatrt, "Now, if the end be here!" 
True, his poems are not always bright with sun- 
shine — not always glad with gorgeous blos- 
soms. His skies were often cloudy and his 
flowers of sombre hue. Yet, could ever noon- 
tide be more glorious, or ever earth-bloom be 
richer than the fitful radiance or the varied ex- 
uberance of his Verse? 

To the contemplation of every phase of 
beauty, — the unconscious, natural, child-like 
worship of all things lovely, whether color or 
form, material or subjective, Thompson owes 
much of the charm of his composition. But it 
is the worship of the artist, not the dumb won- 
der of the sight-seer. It is the inspired hymn of 
the seraph, not the formal chant of the syco- 
phant. Like the impassioned Greek who 
brought his deities down to his fireside, he 
knows his gods, communes with them, loves 
them. 

His interpretations of Nature's meanings re- 
veal not only the constant faith of the lover, 
but the familiar intimacy of the companion. 
His treatment of her was not intensely spiritual 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 39 

or profoundly religious, but cordially worship- 
ful. He views her in serious temper or watches 
her in playful levity. He is with her in sacred 
solitude or attends her most secret revels. No 
humor of her being or phase of her aspect 
escapes him; no smile or frown, no appearance 
or posture, save only that highest, most holy 
import in spiritual mystery and ideality which 
Shelley interprets in that exquisite lyrical poem 
— the "Hymn to Intellectual Liberty." 

Yet how dear, how faithful his servitude, how 
exact his exposition of the forms and fancies of 
Nature's manners and moods ! No English poet 
has so skillfully painted, with sudden dash of 
the brush — with rapid flash of the fancy, a 
thousand complete pictures each in a mere 
epithet or phrase, — not even the more polished, 
the more graceful Keats. Such astounding 
swiftness of delineation, such amazing variety 
of portrayal, flaring for an instant from the 
burning ardor of his imagination, bewilder us 
with their infinite diversity, oppress us with 
their overwhelming richness. 



40 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

His are not the great frescoes of Raphael, his 
are not the great sonatas of Beethoven; but the 
numberless miniatures and portraits of his 
word-painting, the scherzos and valses of his 
word-music are complete if not grand, perfect 
if not ambitious. Idea and personification, 
thought and metaphor, feeling and analogy, 
are all blent and mingled with scenery and 
imagery of infinite forms and colors. His 
poetry is a flashing diamond of thought set in 
an opal-aureole of embellishment; a magnifi- 
cent orchid of passion in a jungle of tropical 
green; a sun-burst of wisdom in a prison-cloud 
l<of splendors. 

Like Keats, his philosophical mind had not 
developed with the sensuous. True, a meta- 
physical treatment of certain phases of man's 
relations to Nature seemed entirely spontane- 
ous, as was every element in his expression; but 
the depths of philosophy he had not sought. 
Equally so with dramatic tendencies, of which 
he shows little in his work, though in life his 
tragic fate is terrible to contemplate. Whether 
the period of his poetic labors, shortened by 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 41 

those last ten years of fruitless existence, if 
extended to ordinary length, might not have 
given us equal marvels in many forms, we can 
but sadly wonder. 

Yet, constantly, as by some subtle fire at the 
forge of that rare imagination, he made so 
much of little things : and does not this faculty 
indicate the philosopher, who reasons the ulti- 
mate soul from the mere germ of an idea? The 
forlorn outcast, the companionless wanderer, 
for whom the world had done so little and to 
whom it now owes so much, vivifying the 
amenities of existence by dreadful contrasts, 
cherished in his tender sensibilities the most 
exquisite friendships revealed in our language. 
The "Sister Songs" are the highest expression 
of the very chastity of dispassionate love and 
cordial gratitude. That exeJted feeling, fined 
by fires of torturing anguish which singed and 
scorched in their fury even the rare gold of his 
mind, arose pure as an exhalation of thought, 
sweet as a breath of incense from a divine cen- 
ser. No poet has ever given us more sweetly 
innocent worship of feminine beauty and love- 
liness, so purged of all self-interest or undue 



42 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

familiarity. His friendships were subjective^ 
spontaneous feelings, arising like flowers 
touched by the spring sun's magic wand. 

Indeed, spontaneity is the attribute that 
above all other qualities distinguishes Thomp- 
son's work. This element is revealed in his reli- 
gion as well as in his imagination. His resultant 
or rather attendant beliefs were a strange mix- 
ture of acquired materialism, artless pantheism 
and orthodox theism. For the first, read that 
seething sneer and scoff at life and immortality 
in "An Anthem of Earth," the most powerful, 
crushing denunciation of popular faith in all 
English poetry: 

" * * * Now, mortal-sonlike, 

I thou hast suckled. Mother, I at last. 

Shall sustenant be to thee. Here I untrammel. 

Here I pluck loose the body's cerementing, 

And break the tomb of life; here I shake off 

The bur o' the world, man's congregation shun. 

And to the antique order of the dead 

I take the tongueless vows: my cell is set 

Here in thy bosom; my little trouble is ended 

In a little peace." 

from "An Anthem of Earth.** 

For the second, read that pure exalted paean, 
radiant with richest hues of heaven — The "Ode 
to the Setting Sun:" 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 4£ 

"Who made the splendid rose 
Saturate with purple glows; 
Cupped to the marge with beauty; a perfume-press 

Whence the wind vintages 
Gushes of warmed fragrance richer far 

Than all the Havorous ooze of Cyprus* vats? 
Lo, in yon gale which waves her green cymar. 
With dusky cheeks burnt red 
She sways her heavy head. 
Drunk with the must of her own odorousness; 

While in a moted trouble the vexed gnats 
Maze, and vibrate, and tease the noontide hush. 
Who girt dissolved lightnings in the grape? 
Summered the opal with an Irised Hush? 
Is it not thou that dost the tulip drape, 
And huest the daffodilly. 
Yet who hast snowed the lily. 
And her frail sister, whom the waters name. 
Dost vestal-vesture 'mid the blaze of June, 
Cold as the new-sprung girlhood of the moon 
Ere Autumn's kiss sultry her cheek with flame? 
Thou sway'st thy sceptred beam 
O'er all delight and dream. 
Beauty is beautiful but in thy glance: 
And like a jocund maid 
In garland-Bowers arrayed. 
Before thy ark Earth keeps her sacred dance." 
from "Ode to the Setting Sun." 

For the third, read that fantastic but intense 
confession of the wandering, reclaimed soul — 
"The Hound of Heaven:" 

"I triumphed and I saddened with all weather. 

Heaven and I wept together, 
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; 



44 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

Against the red throb of its sunset-heart 
I laid my own to beat. 
And share commingling heat; 
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. 
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek. 
For ah! we know not what each other says. 
These things and I; in sound I speak — 
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. 
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth; 

Let her, if she would owe me, 
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me 

The breasts o' her tenderness: 
Never did any milk of hers once bless 
My thirsting mouth. 
Nigh and nigh draws the chase. 
With unperturbed pace. 
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy; 
And past those noised Feet 
A voice comes yet more fleet 
*Lo! naught contents thee, who content* st 
not Me: " 

from "The Hound of Heaven." 

or that praise for the rare perfection and regret 
at the empty hope of Shelley's ''Adonais:'' 

"One thing prevents *Adonais' from being 
ideally perfect: its lack of Christian hope. Yet 
we remember well the writer of a popular 
memoir on Keats proposing as *the best consola- 
tion for the mind pained by this sad records' 
Shelley's inexpressibly sad exposition of Panthe- 
istic immortality: 

*He is a portion of the loveliness 
Which once he made more lovely, etc' 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 45 

What utter desolation can it be that discerns 
comfort in this hope, whose wan countenance is 
as the countenance of a despair? Nay, was not 
indeed **wanhope'* the Saxon for despair? What 
deepest depth of agony is it that finds consola- 
tion in this immortality : an immortality which 
thrusts you into death, the maw of Nature, that 
your dissolved elements may circulate through 
her veins? 

Yet such, the poet tells me, is my sole balm for 
the hurts of life. I am as the vocal breath float- 
ing from an organ. I too shall fade on the 
winds, a cadence soon forgotten. So I dissolve 
and die, and am lost in the ears of men: the 
particles of my being twine in newer melodies, 
and from my one death arise a hundred lives. 
Why, through the thin partition of this conso- 
lation Pantheism can hear the groans of its 
neighbour. Pessimism. Better almost the black 
resignation which the fatalist draws from his 
own hopelessness, from the fierce kisses of 
misery that hiss against his tears.** 

from "Essay on Shelley.** 

In all his works, there is that inconsistent, in- 
congruous attitude ''Of mine own moods, or 
wailful or divine." His mystic music resounds 
with majestic tones of immortal verity, or 
deadens to dolorous notes of doom, the glorious 
h3rmn of seraphic triumph — the dismal lament 
of hopeless mortality. Yet, through all that 
varied existence in "the cumbered gutters of 



46 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

humanity/' or in that realm of exalted vision, 
in all the vagaries and vicissitudes of a tragic 
life, that indomitable, instinctive worship of all 
things beautiful lightens the depression of 
every sombre feeling, enriches the severity of 
every harsh expression. After all his soul was 
sure of her quest, for "beauty is truth** and 
truth is love and love is God. 

In imagination we dare not attempt such an 
impossible thing as a classification by compari- 
son. The greatest faculty of analysis, a func- 
tion of the lower order of mind we denominate 
"reason," utterly fails at its approach to this 
highest reach of mentality. The sacred writers 
of Biblical times called this power "vision," 
the modern author names it "invention," the 
popular view accepts it as "illusion," but its 
highest form is surely intuition and revelation. 
With this rare gift alone we reach beyond the 
confines of sensuous being, and in such a state, 
whether acquirement or endowment, Thomp- 
son dwells in natural, voluntary activity. 

However his imagination was not marked by 
the sublimity of Milton or Shelley. He did not 
work out great themes with all embracing con- 
ception. His mind was not a charmed palace 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 47 

of celestial visions, but a miraculous woodland 
bower of flitting dreams. His are not the 
"broad sweep of angel cohorts through realms 
of spirit-space"; not the grand "triumph of 
mortal man o'er tyrannous doom." His fancy, 
rarified, unsubstantial, could grasp the exqui- 
site raptures of a fleeting moment; could see 
"the invisibilities of imaginative color"; could 
hear the soundless strains of ethereal music; 
could perceive all transient hues, dissolving 
harmonies and fading forms. "The butterfly- 
sunset . . . alit on the swinging blossom," 
jewels that "shiver in lustrous throbbings," 
heavens "plashy with flying lightnings," "the 
grasses like an anchored smoke," "a grape- 
spurt, a vine-splash," "umbered juices and 
pulped oozes, Pappy out of the cherry-bruises," 
— what a "bacchic reel and revel" of voluptu- 
ous splendors! Such amazing wealth of ex- 
haustless decoration, such lavish luxury of 
prodigal display, such sumptuous array of ex- 
travagant ornament, until our surfeited sense 
oppressed with the crush of sweetness, ceases 
to enjoy only to wonder. 

The purest poetry, the most perfect expres- 
sion of human thought, embodied in the Bible 



48 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

more than any other extant form, uses figura- 
tive language as a vehicle of meaning, a man- 
ner of illustration, a means not an end. But 
Thompson's imagery is cultivated as **a, thing 
of beauty," and is its own excuse for being. It 
is the olive- wreath, not the crowned hero, — 
the embellishments of the temple not the sanc- 
tuary of the statued god. His personification 
is so perpetual, so unremitting, that every form, 
color, element, object is given sudden and 
beautiful life, and moves and speaks and sings 
as thrilled with instant soul. This manner lends 
a strange, weird mysticism to his verse, a fitful 
glamour flushing softly o'er the sadness of his 
fate, — a rose-sky at day-fall. 

His withered powers, weakened and wasted 
by disease and hardship, no more conjured up 
those visions of celestial beauty, those dreams 
of finite loveliness. His muse, wearied with her 
vigil, "cowered in the darkening chamber of 
his being," and pined away to utter silence. He 
soon became but "the vocal breath floating 
from an organ," "a cadence soon forgotten," "a 
cloud that hath out-wept its rain." 

Yet, seeing how this marvelous mind trans- 
formed the barren earth of London lanes into 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 4£ 

flowered meadows of Elysium, the gloom of 
coarse existence into the irised hues of heaven, 
the blight of sheerest misery into the ecstacy of 
angels, — surely there are none who would deny 
him the acknowledgement of mortal fame or 
the recompense of immortality. Nay, for such 
a soul we must believe the contrsists of earth 
and heaven complete, the balance of universal 
law perfected, the harmony of God fulfilUed, 
in some 

"... garden of enchanting . . . 
Swayless for my spirit's haunting. 
Thrice-threefold walled with emerald 
from our mortal mornings grey." 



Francis Thompson's Poetry, 
An Essay 



FRANCIS THOMPSON'S POETRY 

In the poetry of the late-lamented Francis 
Thompson of London, there is the essence of a 
genius as strange as it is beautiful. It is strange 
because much of his immortal verse was writ- 
ten during his tragic, outcast life in London 
byways. It is beautiful because the ugly, dis- 
gusting features of the life around him had no 
influence whatever on the purity and dignity 
of his conceptions. 

His mind was a magician's wand that turned 
all it touched to pure gold. Even his utter mis- 
ery, both mental and physical, could scarcely 
tinge the brilliance of his vision, and the stain, 
though sombre, was illumined with rarest hues. 

His most constant faculty was a voluntary, 
unconscious worship of beauty in all its forms. 
This power changed common weeds into gor- 
geous blossoms, turned the gloom of night into 
the solemn splendor of day, and even the sad- 
der shadows of evening twilights into the 
irised glories of rosy sunsets. His fancy was a 
rich pallette of varied tints, not all sparkling 
with light, but many obscure with shadow. 

Yet, what radiant pictures he has painted, 
what exalted dreams he has portrayed, what 



54 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

strange scenes he has sketched on his word- 
canvas! True his subjects were often dictated 
by mere environment, and Thompson's life was 
not one of pleasant ease and cheery sunshine. 
But the low-grade ore of common sense-per- 
ception, treated in the giowing forge of his sub- 
tle ideality, issued as the purest gold free from 
the dross of coarser influences. In all his work 
there exists not one line of indelicate feeling — 
in fact not even of mean conception. All sense 
of form and outward things, drawn into the 
purifying realm of fancy arose again sweet 
and lovely, like hepaticas from the deadened 
leaves. 

Thompson was nominally a Catholic, and 
much of his expression is tinged with religious 
feeling or rather adorned with religious anal- 
ogy. But he, like Keats, was influenced by the 
Classic spirit, and the decorations of his verse 
are ancient rather than modern. His natural 
inclination was toward a mild pantheism. He 
saw a deity in the sunset, a naiad in the stresun ; 
the graces moved through his ezurthly realm, 
and the fates, alas, hovered about his sorrowful 
existence. 

Though suffering the terrors of privation and 
want, the bitterness of his pain seldom sounded 
in his harmonious song. Only rarely, in "An 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 55 

Anthem of Earth" or "Any Saint," the wretch- 
edness of his life has crept into his verse, — the 
awful mental anguish, softened and assuaged 
by the beauty of an eternal hope however 
vague and uncertain. This is the strangest 
thing in the artist's life — that production of 
such exquisite beauty could flourish amid the 
rank growth of surrounding affliction and dis- 
aster. 

His worship of the beautiful extended even 
to his acquaintances, and in the "Sister Songs" 
we have the most tender, sincere praise of 
womanly friendship in the language. Grati- 
tude and appreciation, picturesque with sweet 
adornments and fervid with reverent feeling, 
breathes innocently and purely through those 
pathetic melodies. Apparently the kind friends 
who found and rescued him almost from the 
"cumbered gutters" of London slums, received 
all the affection of his amiable nature. We 
have no hint or knowledge that Thompson ever 
had a love-affair. This is a strange saying, for 
love is thought to be the burden of the poet's 
song, the inspiration of his work, the acme of 
his desire. Yet in all his production there is not 
a single love-lyric. But who has missed them, 
or who has wished his melodies and sentiments 



56 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

varied so as to include what is at best a usual 
passion? 

Thompson's imagination was fine, delicate, 
subtle. He did not reach the sublime heights 
of Shelley, or formulate the grand conceptions 
of Milton. He worked with all possible ele- 
ments, but he cherished them for their indi- 
vidual beauty, nor combined them into great 
structures of towering magnificence. Yet his 
faculty was quick, rich, rarified — his fancies 
evanescent, filmy, fragile. He knew the fleet- 
ing phases of a rapturous moment; he saw the 
vague appearance of Nature's strangest pas- 
sions; he grasped the pallid wonders of infinite 
seemings, and made them stay and change into 
palpable beings for our adoration. True, the 
high passions of the super-mind — the far, 
strange forces of discovery and revelation, that, 
in the absolute greatness of some souls, pierce 
even to the supernal, were not his native gift 
or cultivated acquirement. But his power of 
minute perception and discernment W2is deli- 
cate if not divine, deep if not universal, intense 
if not exalted. 

The one poem that seems to contradict this 
judgment, that in itself is a complete and 
rounded conception, is "The Hound of 



FRANCIS THOMPSON $1 

Heaven." This work is a single idea, univer- 
sal in application and pursued to a finished 
form, steadily and surely, "with unperturbed 
pace, deliberate speed," as the love of God fol- 
lowed the wayward soul to ultimate salvation. 
This is indeed one of the finest odes of our lan- 
guage, replete with deepest feeling, full of ex- 
quisite meaning, beautiful with rare decora- 
tion. It indicates a native power of greisp and 
insight that in some happier life than this 
tragic existence, might have developed into a 
wonderful faculty. 

Considering the actual execution of detail, 
we find many strange inconsistencies, much de- 
plorable negligence in the finished product. It 
seems that Thompson's work was somewhat 
determined by mere necessity; and yet he sel- 
dom humbles his genius to the menial task ol: 
writing an "occasional" poem — the lowest 
phase of any art. But there is such a rush and 
speed in his imagery, combined with the sheer 
inattention to revision and polish, that we won- 
der how the delicate creatures were dashed 
off at the urgent command of his inspiration. 

Many of his longer poems show a sad lack of 
unity and symmetry. They were like his poetic 
life which ended ten years before his physical 



58 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

death, — an existence dragging out to no pur- 
pose or result, long after his muse had departed 
from his forlorn being. He had no sense of 
completeness and little of congruity, the ex- 
ception being that great master-work on Shel- 
ley, the most ornate ''essay in criticism'' in Eng- 
lish. Many of his poems would have made 
three complete subjects. True, we get the full 
effect of all the weird beauties, crowding one 
upon another like magical forms and colors of 
a kaleidoscope; but the total result of the mes- 
sage — the impression of the mighty truth of 
perfect art, is sacrificed to a rambling, varied, 
straggling treatment, a musical theme with a 
dozen amazing variations. 

Thompson's bodily existence, like his mental 
attitudes, was one-sided. No poet has shown 
such vagaries both of conception and execu- 
tion; yet none has ever manifested such pure 
spontaneity. This is the conclusion of the 
whole matter, all faults of performance are ex- 
plained by that one adjective — ''spontaneous." 
His many virtues, too, were determined by the 
same tendency. Thus we have a rich, exuber- 
ant mass of pictures and images, adorned, in- 
tensified by the strangest epithets, the weirdest 
fancies, the sweetest analogies in any modern 
poet's work. 



FRANCIS THOMPSON 5£ 

Language could not be more heavily laden 
with copious embellishment than this, — the 
very transplanting of a thousand lovely growths 
from the poet's teeming mind to the body of 
his elaborate verse. All the visions he saw, 
all the sentiments he felt arise with ''majestic 
instancy'' in numberless lights and shades, 
rushing, swarming into perfect expression with 
such bewildering rapidity, that the mind is 
crushed with sweetness, and sinks in utter sa- 
tiety to silence and wonder. 

Personification and metaphor, faithful and 
unremitting, marks this inspired lyracist's mel- 
odies more than any other trait. The sun is a 
god of mystery and power; Nature is a beauti- 
ful being dressed in a hundred mutable styles; 
a star is a cherub wandering in heaven's 
meadows; the poet's days are sun-starts on a 
stream; his melodies are broken stammer of 
the skies. Such miniatures of unsubstantial 
loveliness, such minute portrayals of subjective 
states, such word-paintings of fleeting forms 
and fancies were never so varied or numerous. 
Every allusion, comparison, setting, scene pos- 
sible to the mind is conjured up by the uncon- 
scious faculty of figurative decoration. 



60 FRANCIS THOMPSON 

In the pursuance of such imaginative delights 
Thompson has employed unpardonable rhymes, 
coined ill-sounding phrases, adopted daring 
conceits, chosen meaningless derivatives. This 
habit leads to considerable obscurity, and ob- 
scurity is allowable only in science and phil- 
osophy, not in lyric poetry. All these odd, im- 
possible epithets and idioms are called forth by 
involuntary selection, influenced by a worship 
of the fantastic, the mystical, the lovely. This 
is the secret of the poet's existence — the ulti- 
j mate good of beauty. No mind can contem- 
plate such master- works, etherialized by pure 
exaltation, without a sensible effect, a conscious 
uplift toward higher things. This is true even 
if the beauty be chiefly sensuous as in Thomp- 
son and Keats, or spiritual as in Shelley and 
Wordsworth. The sensuous is the true but 
finite — the spiritual is the true aitd divine. 

Thompson's grasp is intellectual, but his man- 
ner is objective. His message is not a magnifi- 
cent appeal to universal man, his song is not 
a triumphant hymn to perfectionability. His 
ambitions were those of a faithful servitor of 
Nature, absolutely true to every whim and mood 
of his darling mistress, but not comprehending 
her as the embodiment of rarer visions of 
spiritualized creations. 



FRANCIS THOMPSON £Jf 

To what heights his aspiration might have 
lifted him had his environment been less op- 
pressive to those rarified, sensitive phases of 
his being, we can only regretfully conjecture. 
The hardships of terrible reality had racked 
his frail body and deadened his delicate sensi- 
bilities. He was sick with the struggle before his 
rescue came, he was worn out with inhuman 
endurance of a thousand ills. The fragile flower 
of that exalted spirit bent and broke in the mis- 
erable storms of material existence. But his 
last desire for rest was granted, and he knew 
"his little trouble was ended in a little peace," — 

**a sad musician of cherubic birth. 
Playing to alien ears that did not prize 
The uncomprehended music of the skies — 
The exiled airs of her far Paradise.** 



Published Works of Francis Thompson 

Works of Francis Thompson, complete edition in 3 
volumes (1913): Charles Scribner's Sons, New 
York. 

Shelley: an Essay— (1909, 4th Ed.): Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons, New York. 

Sister Songs; New Poems; Hound of Heaven; Se- 
lected Poems (separate volumes). 
John Lane Company, 
New York. 

Health and Holiness; Saint Ignatius Loyola (sepa- 
rate volumes). 

Burns & Oates, Ltd., 
28 Orchard St. W. London, Eng. 

Life and Labors of St. John Baptiste de la Salle, 
(1912) : B. Herder, 17 S. Broadway, St. Louis, Mo. 

Hound of Heaven, notes, etc. (1916): P. Reilly, 133 
N. 13th St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Life of Francis Thompson, by Everard Meynell (new 
edition uniform with Thompson's "Works") 
(1916): Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 



%• 



